Santa Steps Out: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups (22 page)

"We've grown apart, haven't we?"

"There seems far less common ground between us. It's sad."

"I'd like you to hold me."

Nothing. Just the soft steady protest of the rocker.

"Will you hold me, Anya?"

"Not yet. Not now. Give me time. Let it heal."

*****

Anya had triumphed. But as she stood at the counter kneading dough, hands white with flour, she wondered why she felt defeated. Less than a hour before, her husband had lifted off into the sky and his wave had seemed empty, mere ceremony. She punched the dough and pursed her lips, feeling that the world would never be right again.

She no longer blamed Rachel for that. She didn't even blame Santa. A goodness had fled from their lives, and it seemed as though it might just be a symptom of the world's decay, not subject to reversal no matter what they did.

Footsteps sounded in the dining room. A light knock tapped at the doorframe to soften an entrance. Anya turned and saw Rachel.

"Where's Wendy?" Anya asked.

"She went to help Gregor and his brothers freshen up the stables I think."

Anya turned back to the cutting board. The dough was nearly ready for the rolling-pin.

"What are you doing?" asked Rachel.

"Making gingerbread men with raisin eyes. It's Santa's favorite cookie."

"More of a favorite than Oreos?"

Anya smiled over her shoulder. "Oreos don't even come close. Want to help?"

"Sure." She went to the sink and washed her hands, drying them with an embroidered dishtowel hanging by the refrigerator.

A comfortable truce had grown up between the women since Rachel's decision to go, even though Santa continued to spend his nights in the arms of his mortal lover. Anya was glad she and Rachel were ending things on a positive note. Although she hadn't the least desire to visit the gingerbread house, she had pretty much opened her doors to Rachel, and Rachel now spent most of her daylight hours there. Something about being nearer the heart of things, she had said.

"The cookie cutters are in that bottom drawer there," said Anya, nodding. "Trays are under the stove."

"Right."

While she rolled out the brown dough, Anya gave half an eye to Rachel. Her light blond tresses curved like wraps of sunlight about her face. Her breasts and hips Anya found disarmingly lovely beneath her heavy wool sweater and long skirt. No wonder Santa had been taken with her. Indeed in these final weeks, while they had tiptoed about one another, Anya had noticed how engaging Rachel was in her own quirky way. It was unfortunate, she thought, that Santa's having cast them as rivals for his affection had precluded their getting to know one another better.

She would sorely miss Wendy. But in an odd way, she would miss Wendy's mother too.

"All right," said Anya as Rachel finished waxing a cookie tray, "I think it's thin enough to—"

A sharp rap fell upon the front door, loud and not at all like the knock of any elf. "Good lord, who could that be, and me with my hands all doughy?"

"Don't bother, I'll get it," said Rachel. In an instant she was out of the kitchen and moving through the house, Snowball and Nightwind at her heels.

"I'll be right there," called Anya.

She plunged her hands under the faucet and grabbed at a towel. She was still wiping them off when, shouldering her way through the kitchen door into the dining room, she heard Rachel scream with terror, and saw, looming in the doorway at the end of the hall, the furry white figure of the Easter Bunny holding in one paw an enormous bouquet of red roses and pink carnations.

12. Blood and Passion

The Easter Bunny strode in, unasked, and kicked the door shut behind him. He stared hard as nails at Santa's new fuckmate, clothed for a change, cringing back against the hall mirror, shock splashed across her face. A sweet morsel she'd be, this Rachel woman, once she calmed down and extended freely the warm sleeve of friendship to him. Santa's wife, a feisty old biddy full of dark fire, was drying her hands on a dishtowel and frowning at him from the archway.

"Ladies," he protested, "is this any way to greet a gentleman caller?" He clutched the bouquet tight to his chest, keeping his other paw concealed behind him.

Anya glared. "I don't recall inviting you in. What are you doing here with your eyes shot red and your fur bristling out in all directions? You look a fright."

"Just dropped by to give this lovely bouquet to the fair Ms. McGinnis"—he thrust a pawful of flowers under Rachel's nose and she fumblingly took them, holding them in both hands like frozen fire—"and to offer you, my peppery Anya, this exquisite treasure."

Here he brought forth his prize, feeling its burning luster fuck and refuck his paw, the tiny orgasms coursing up his arm like wavelets lapping at a golden shore.

"An egg?" She was mesmerized. Her arms fell to her sides, the dishtowel dropped to the floor.

"Not just any egg, Anya. From the way you gaze upon it, I can see you appreciate that. Yes, Rachel, you too. Come closer, there's nothing to fear." As they stared in wonder at the pulsing pink ovoid, he skittered his lust over the soft curves and concavities of their bodies and told them how, one thousand Easters after Christ rose from the dead, while he (the Easter Bunny) was out making his rounds, his most lackadaisical layer (a Wyandotte who was the butt and scorn of the other hens) blinked open her astonished eyes and, protesting every inch of the way, brought forth from her nether regions four divine eggs, blood-pink and perfect, dropped to form the corners of a square, and a fifth egg, this one, at their center. With the fires of heaven they throbbed, and God had stepped down from His high throne upon the Easter Bunny's return and adjured him to keep their quincunxial pattern unbroken until the last trump sounded.

"But for you, sweet Anya, to buy your carnal favors, I now break the pattern. Go ahead, touch it. As amazing as it looks, a thousand times more wonderful is the feel of it upon your flesh."

Anya's hand rose, hesitant. How lovely her elderly fingers were to his eyes, those fingers he'd seen fondle into full flower so many elfin genitals the year before. As irresistible as the Tooth Fairy was, the prospect of yet another bout of knock-down, bone-dry sex had lost much of its perverse charm. And when he'd stood in the snow at the rear of the gingerbread house, watching Santa plunge into the wide-open meat of a soft, wet, yielding Rachel, he ached beyond the ache of gonads. How soothing that moist warm tunnel of flesh was going to feel hugging his abraded organ, which now rose painfully to full tilt. His nose twitched. He sniffed the interwoven womanstench of Santa's lovely wives, who drifted ever closer under the unrelenting lure of the quintessential egg.

*****

Anya's scalp tingled. The hallway had grown suddenly dark, as if night seeped through its walls to cup the precious egg in its palms. And the egg? It gave off a glow, pink and powerful as sunset across a howling tundra. Rising to a gentle dome above the two clutching paws, it looked like the unslit tip of the perfect lover's penis, the pink and perfect skin of its glans waiting, tight as a drumhead, for her fingers, her lips, the opening flower of her womanhood. Now the hallway closed around her like a hothouse, rich with the aroma of warm damp earth. Longing to loosen her garments, she let the fingers of her left hand move upon her breasts, toying with the cross-lacing there, as her right hand floated closer to the egg.

She watched Rachel reach out and finger the eggtip, then heard a spike split open her throat and unholy orgasm seize the mortal woman. Anya broke from the egg and jerked her head up to gaze into the mad reddish whorls of the Easter Bunny's eyes.

For the first time, Anya saw him clearly. This was a rogue bunny now. Something had gotten to him since they had last met, eating away at his restraint until there was nothing left but death and madness.

She snatched the egg from the Easter Bunny's grasp. "Here's what I think of your gift, Mister Rabbit!" she said, and hurled it hard toward the hall mirror. As lights once again flared in the hallway, the egg's pink twin came rushing to meet it, kissing with a loud crack its cracking double and dribbling yolk and bits of shell down the glass. The cats grew wide-eyed and raced out of the hallway.

But before she could turn back and throw her unwanted guest out, the Easter Bunny slammed into her and she fell hard upon the floor, buried beneath white fur and raking claws. "Stupid cunt," he screamed, his bunny breath rank as weeds, "I'll teach you!" Her spectacles flew off and clattered across the floor. Razors seared her face. Then he was grinding her skull into the carpet. Her neck strained from the twisting and she saw out of the corner of an eye the hard pink pads of his paw, and her blood dripping from the curve of his claws. His long bristling ears whipped furiously above her. He rent her bodice with his teeth, taking skin as well as cloth. Below, his back claws tore her dress to tatters. He wrapped his powerful legs tight around her lacerated thighs, prying them apart and doing his best to thrust his huge red erection into her. Past his shoulder, Rachel was pummeling his furry back, her face knotted in anger, her mouth hurling harsh words.

Now shock gave way to rage, and Anya's fury knew no bounds. Strength surged back into her arms and legs and she bit into his paw, tasting bunny blood. She twisted a knuckled fist into his underbelly. When the swiftness of it made him momentarily loose his hold, Anya pressed her attack, digging into his throat with one hand and twisting mercilessly at the pinched tip of his prick with the other. Rachel, she saw, was tugging on his long upright ears, wrenching at them and making them stretch. Good for her!

"Jesus Christ!" yowled the Easter Bunny. Suddenly he was out of Anya's grasp and off her. The cool air of the hallway slapped at her wounded body. She raised herself on her elbows, looked about, and swore. Rachel, full of useless protest, had fallen victim to his attack. Bits of bloody sweater flew free of her torso. Her skirt hung in tatters about her hips. Long thin slashes cut across her inner thighs and burbled over with blood. Then their attacker was inside her, thrusting and chittering, and Rachel, screaming and struggling, clutched her bleeding breasts, dark red dripping from a deep gash across one cheek.

Anya staggered to her feet. She had to act quickly or the mortal woman would die. But time hung heavy about her. She waded knee-deep in it. The crazed rabbit drove himself home again and again as Rachel's blood-laced arms flailed helplessly at the air. Between the Easter Bunny's hind legs, translucent brown skin cupped his pink kidney-shaped testicles. Anya hauled back with her right foot and slammed her shoetip into his crotch. He fell with a shocked yelp onto the carpet, glared at Anya through his pain, snarled, made a weak swipe at her with one claw, and vanished.

Gone into magic time, Anya supposed. But pursuit was the furthest thing from her mind. Though Anya's wounds had healed completely, Rachel would be dead in minutes if she didn't act swiftly to save her.

Without a thought regarding their late rivalry, she began at the deep gash on Rachel's face, tonguing around the ragged edges of it, making her way lick by lick to its harsh red center. If she tasted its bitter tang, she paid it no heed. Rachel had lost a great deal of blood. Her wounds had to be closed at once.

Face looks fine now, thought Anya. Thank God he left her neck alone. Ugly lacerations across the chest. She straddled the unconscious woman and licked in haste at the torn left breast, taking the aureole and nipple and skin into her mouth and tonguing it all back into shape. Then one by one she soothed and erased with her healing saliva every bloody clawtrail the Easter Bunny had blazed across Rachel's torso. The victim, she noted, though still unconscious, was breathing easier.

But there was no time to let up, no time for Anya to give a care to the ruins of her own clothing, which fell away as she ministered to Rachel. Worse mayhem lay below and Rachel was hemorrhaging badly. The fiend's back claws had shredded her skin, laid bare the muscles of her inner thighs, de-lipped the very organ he proceeded to violate. Anya plunged her face into the carnage and licked to save Rachel's life. Though the taste of gore filled her mouth, she shut her eyes and let instinct guide her, keeping her tongue moving back and forth over the mortal woman's belly and thighs, ministering to her, healing where hurt had sundered flesh.

Soon the taste of fresh blood no longer met her lips and Anya opened her eyes to behold the smooth expanse of Rachel's flawless white body, no wounds anywhere, not even a scar, her blond private hair mottled now with shades of russet under Anya's fingers where the blood had tinted it. There was a new taste on Anya's tongue, a taste she very much liked. But mingled with it was a vile drop of rabbit semen, and she knew that one task remained if Rachel were to be truly healed. Down she dipped, her mouth against the mortal woman's sex, tonguing deep inside her, as deep as she could probe, and sucking with all her might. The rapist's bitter seed halted its mad hurtle wombward, beaded protesting backward down the walls of his victim's vagina, and passed out of her labia into Anya's mouth. Resisting the impulse to gag, Anya leaned aside and spat out as much of the rank fluid as she could. It puddled like pale pus on the blood-soaked rug.

A gentle hand touched her leg. Anya gazed up from where she crouched over Rachel, past the riotous blond curls shining like angel hair in the lamplight of the hallway, and saw her large hazel eyes open and glowing. "How are you feeling?" Anya asked.

"Don't stop," whispered Rachel and reached out with her other hand to urge Anya's head gently back down.

*****

Throughout the attack, it seemed to Rachel that she had fallen into a tangled mix of her worst nightmares: smotherings, helplessness, unbearable cold, monstrous clawed beings invading her and stretching out her death through an eternity of pain. Then it no longer boasted even the soft ameliorating edges of a nightmare. It felt everywhere hard and sharp, and she knew she was bleeding to death.

But abruptly the relentless slashings and impalings ceased and a benign goddess began pasting her face back together. Rachel's eyes fixed idly upon a rectangular lake: a chandelier hanging sideways above it in the walled sky found its double beneath the ice, which shone mirror-clear save for translucent skids of yolk and egg white and scattered shards of eggshell.